96 MR. K. ANDERSEN ON BATS [May 16, 



sense of the term*, there are only two alternatives: it is either 

 Rh. rouxi or a species of the Rh. acuminatus section. I have 

 not the slightest hesitation in i-eferring the name as a synonym 

 to the former species. As, howevei-, Dobson himself later on 

 applied the name to two Bats of the acurainatus section, it will 

 only be necessary to give evidence, from his own descrijDtion, that 

 he was mistaken. The only impoi'tant jDoints in the description 

 of " RJi. petersi " as given by Dobson in 1872 and 1876, i. e. at the 

 time vjhen he had access to the type specimen^ are the following 

 (the italics are mine) — (1) The nose-leaves are "as in Rh. 

 acuminatus, except the upper border of the posterior connecting 

 process, which is mtich less acute." This statement alone would 

 be sufficient. In acuminatics the shape of the sella and lancet is 

 very much as in rouxi, but the connecting process, both in 

 acuminatus and in all its allies {sumatranus, calypso, audax), is 

 p)rojecting and piointed ; there is, in this respect, no difference 

 between the species of the acuminatus 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. p)eteTsi to be very difierent 

 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 acummatus) ; such individuals are by no means 

 rare ; there are several in the British Museum, and the peculiarity 

 is purely individual. Dobson found, quite naturally, that this 

 peculiarity recalled that shape of the connecting process wdiich had 

 been described, one year earlier, by Peters in a sjDecies called by 

 him Rh. acuminatus t, 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 acumdnatus. Dobson has, 

 no doubt, called the attention of his artist to the connecting 

 process of the specimen to be figiu-ed as Rh. j^etersi, 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 rotixi ; but it is still 

 not the process of an acuminatu.s. (3) The measurements of 

 petersi are, without any exception, perfectly like those of several 

 unquestionable specimens of rouxi measured by myself ; there is not 

 the slightest indication of a difference. (4) The type of petersi is 

 from " India, precise locality unknown," The acuminatus 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 FJi. petersi wei'e a member of the 

 acuminatus section, the type, withoujt locality, would have been 



* Dobson, J. A. S. B. xli. pt. ii. (Dec, 22, 1872) p. 337 ; id., Monogr. Asiat. Chir. 

 (1876) p. 49, text-figs, a, h. 

 t Peters, MB. Akad. Berlin, 1871, p. 30?. 



