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



the faunistic affinities of tliat island ; and it has established itself 

 on the western coast of the Indian Peninsula (gracilis). I have 

 but very little doubt that now, when attention has been called to 

 the differences of all these forms of the minor-type, it will be 

 found also in other parts of the Indian Peninsula. 



If any inference can be drawn from fragments of a skull and 

 the external characters, the subbacUus-type would appear to be 

 an offshoot of the 'minor-type : already in minor and cormdus 

 the process is a little sharper- pointed than in lepidios ; in subbadius 

 and monoceros this tendency is carried much further. 



The skull of the species of the acuminahos section (Java- 

 Lombok, Sumatra-Engano) is of the lejddus-tjpe ; the process 

 too ; the colour remarkably like that of refidgens. This leads me 

 to suppose that aciominatits and its allies {simiatranus, calypso') 

 are scarcely more than giant representatives of the lepidus-t-^pe. 



It is the sid)badi'U,s-tjpe which, from a zoogeographical point 

 of view, is by far the most interesting : it has spread southwest- 

 wards over a vast part of the Ethioj)ian Region, and westwards 

 over the Mediterranean countries : — 



(1) The empusa-tjpe. — Rli. empusa^ and blasii have progressed 

 further on the way already indicated by Eh. subbadius. They 

 have the small skull and the small teeth characteristic of minor- 

 stibbadiics ; in the shape of the skull there is no essential difference ; 

 the dentition is identically the same ; the process is that of a sub- 

 badius; the sella is deltoid, that is: the tendency, in the subbadiios- 

 sella (as emphasised a^bove), towards assuming a subacute summit 

 has been further developed ; and we still see the constriction at 

 the middle of the sella. But empusa and blasii are (as always the 

 Ethiopian and W. Palaearctic species) in several points more highly 

 developed : III.^ is lengthened (about, or more than, 1| the length 

 of III\) ; also IY.~ is very much longer (not far from twice the 

 length of IV\). Uh. empusa is, however, an inhabitant of Nyasa- 

 land, far S. of the Equator, Rh. blasii of the Mediterranean 

 Subregion ; thus, the two extremely closely allied species are 

 now separated by an enormous tract, where no relative appears 

 to occur. As we now know that they are descendants of the 

 Oriental sitbbadius-type, the explanation seems to be quite clear : 

 one branch spread south west wards, into the Ethiopian Region, 

 and developed into Rh. empiisa (slightly more primitive dentition ; 

 shorter ears, broader horse-shoe) ; another westwards into the 

 Mediterranean countries, Rh. blasii. There is an instru.ctive fact 

 connected with these two Bats : I believe them to be compara- 

 tively I'ecent intruders into their areas ; Rh. empusa is known 

 from one specimen only, from the very East of Tropical Africa ; 

 Rh. blasii is much more common in the Eastern Mediterranean 

 tract, and still it does not seem to have reached Spain f, 



* Audersen, Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. (7) xiv. (1904) p. 378 (tliere is a misprint on 

 p. 380 : the length of the mandible is 12'1, not 13"1 mm.). 



t Not recorded in Cabrera Latorre's " Quir6pteros de Espana," Mem. Soc. Espaii. 

 Hist. Nat. ii. (1904). I am also not satisfied that there is an}' reliable record from 

 the African coast of the Mediterranean, 



