1905.] OF THE GENUS RHINOLOPHUS 97 



the only Hhinolophus in the museum from any of those islands. 

 This is, of course, not beyond the limits of possibility ; but it is 

 certainly much more likely that Bh. petersi, as also the vast 

 majority of the Bats in the Calcutta Museum at Dobson's time, 

 came from some part of the Indian Peninsula or the Himalayas, 

 the habitat of Bh. rouxi, and far from the home of Rh. ac%m%hiaMis 

 and its allies. 



To describe a new species which subsequently proves to be an 

 old one is no rare occurrence, and, as a rule, it does no very serious 

 harm. But the strong emphasising of a purely individual 

 peculiarity, combined with the cii-cumstance that the type had no 

 " locality," caused in this case a series of confusions : Rh. petersi 

 emerged, like a ghost, very unexpectedly at such difierent places 

 as the Gold Coast, Sumatra, the Himalayas, and S. India. And, 

 curiously enough, the author of the " species " inaugui-ated the 

 mistakes. When he had returned to London and was working 

 out his ' Catalogue,' Dobson had no longer access to the type of 

 Rh. petersi ; he had his own short description only, and perhaps some 

 private note. It is quite evident that, in these circumstances and 

 occupied with the study of many other Bats, he lost the precise 

 idea of the type specimen ; he only kept in his memory, as its most 

 important character, its " projecting " connecting pi'ocess. So it 

 came that he referred a specimen labelled " Gold Coast " to 

 Rh. petersi * ; for it is a genuine acimiinatus, beyond all doubt 

 from Java, and Dobson himself would scarcely have been able 

 to tell why he called it ^je^ersi instead of acuminatiis. Two 

 years later, Dobson had for determination a collection of Bats 

 belonging to the Gottingen Museum ; among these he again 

 believed he found a Rh. petersi t. I have had this example for 

 inspection %; it is neither " Rh. petersi " -nor Rh. acuminattis., but 

 Rh. sumatranus. 



(b) In a paper on some Himalayan Bats, Capt. Hutton § records 

 Rh. petersi from Masuri. All the Bats mentioned by Hutton 

 were presented to the " Indian Museum," and are now in the 

 British Museum. The two specimens labelled '■'■ Rh. petersi" are 

 Rh. monticola, a species closely allied to Rh. lejndus \\. 



* Dobson, Cat. Cliir. Brit. Mus. (1878) p. 114. 



f Dobson, '■ On some new or rare Species of Chiroptera in the Collection of the 

 Gottingen Museum," P. Z.S. 1880, p. 462. 



J I am indebted to Geheimrat, Professor Dr. Ehlers, Gottingen, for the loan of 

 this specimen. 



§ Hutton, " On the Bats of the North-westeni Himala3'as ; with Notes and Correc- 

 tions in Nomenclature by Prof. W. Peters," P. Z. S. 1872, p. 700. 



II As Mutton's article is one of the verj' few papers which give information respecting 

 the liahits of Himalayan Bats, and therefore has been frequently quoted by subsequent 

 writers, I think it advisable to correct the following errors in tlie identifications of 

 the four species of Bhinoloplms dealt with in that paper : — " Bit. affinis " (p. 696) 

 is Bli. pearsoni ; " Rh. rotixi " (p. 697) is E7i. affinis ; " Bh. minor " (p. 698) is Bh. 

 rouxi ; and, as pointed out above, " Bh. petersi " (p. 700) is Bh. monticola. Hutton's 

 Bats were (as also stated in his paper) determined, not by himself, but by Prof. 

 Peters in Berlin. But the mistakes are so strange that they cannot, certainlj", be 

 due to Prof. Peters ; an extensive confusion of labels must have occurred (I can 

 rather easily, from Peters's point of view, as laid down in his papers, guess the 

 original arrangement of the labels), but the confusion had at all events taken place 

 before the specimens were returned to Hutton. 



Proc. Zool. Soc— 1905, Yol. II. No. VII. 7 



