116 MR. K. ANDERSEN ON BATS V^^Y 1^> 



Distribution. From Transcaspia and the Euphrates Yalley 

 thi'ough Southern and Central Europe, exclusive of the Spanish 

 Peninsvila, 



14/. Rhinglophus terrum-equinum obscurus Cabrera. 



Rhinolo2ihus ferrum-equiwam obscurus Cabreia Latorre, Mem. 

 Soc. Espan. Hist. Nat. ii. (1904) p. 257. 



Diagnosis. Smaller than the typical form. 



Details. — (1) Compared with the typical form : see above, p. 114. 



(2) Compared with the Eastern races : the small size, combined 

 with the narrow horse-shoe, make it readily distinguishable. The 

 skull is apparently slightly smaller than in nippon. 



Dentition (4 skulls). As in the typical form. 



Distribution. Spanish Peninsula, with the Balearic Islands. 

 Algeria *. 



General Remarks on the Rhinolophus simplex Group. 



The place of origin. — Of all the existing forms, the Australian 

 Rh. megaphylhis is one of the most primitive in dentition. But 

 it is very unlikely that the Australian Continent has been the 

 place of origin of the group. Rh. megaphyllus is the only 

 Australian species of the whole genus ; this might suggest 

 the assumption that it is an immigrant into the country, 

 rather than an ancient inhabitant : secondly, Australia is tlie 

 extreme eastern border for the group (as well as for the genus), 

 no species being known from the islands to the east of the 

 Continent; it would probably not be so, if Australia had been 

 a centre of dispersal for the group : thirdly, megaj)hyllus has at 

 least two characters which cei'tainly are not primitive — the large 

 nose-leaves, and (probably as a consequence of that) the rather 

 broad nasal swellings : fourthly, megaphyllus looks exti'emely like 

 an enlarged, continental representative of the Lombok species, 

 Rh. simplex (just as Rh. rotixi is the larger, continental repre- 

 sentative of Rh. borneensis). These arguments seem to supj)ort 

 the conjecture that, not the Australian Continent, but the " Indo- 

 Australian Transitional Tract," now broken up into numerous 

 larger and smaller islands, and still inhabited by such, very primi- 

 tive forms as simplex^ truncatus, nanus, celebensis, and borneensis, 

 has been the centre from which the group spread eastwards and 

 westwards. 



Differentiation t. — The ancestral species seems to have divided 

 into two branches, an eastern and a western. In the eastern, 

 more primitive bi-anch the sagittal crest does not reach quite so 

 far forwards as a point corresponding to the middle of the oi'bit ; 

 in the western the temporal fossa is comparatively a little wider, 

 and the sagittal crest produced f orwaixls moi'e or less beyond that 



* The type of Rh. f. ohscums, in the Madrid Museum, is from Valencia, Spain. 

 As will be seen, I take the name in a wider sense. Valencia specimens were 

 ■separated by Prof. Cabrera, as a distinct subspecies, mainly on account of a difference 

 in the ratio between the length and bi-eadth of the horse-shoe. In a larse series of 

 ferrtim-equinum from Europe and W. Asia there is, however, no small, and quite 

 ndividual, variation in this respect. f Compare the diagram on p. 120. 



