THE GREATER HORSESHOE BAT 229 



1905. Rhinolophus ferrum-kquinum typicus, Knud Andersen, Proc. Zool. Soc. 



(London), 17th October 1905, 113. 

 1910. Rhinolophus ferrum-equinum insulanus, G. E. H. Barrett- Hamilton, 



Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist, March, 292 ; described from Cheddar, Somersetshire, 



England (type in British Museum) ; Trouessart, 1910. 



Le Fer-a-cJieval of the French ; die grosse Hufeisennase of the 

 Germans. 



Synonymy: — The synonymy of our two British Horseshoe Bats 

 was very much confused until the end of the eighteenth century, when 

 they were first separated by J. F. Gmelin, and later by Bechstein. Kuhl 

 thought them one species, and although Daubenton was well aware of 

 the distinctions between them, there is nothing in his descriptions to 

 indicate that he had formed any more distinct opinion. (See also under 

 R. hipposideros.) 



Distribution: — R. ferrum-equinum ranges from sea-level to 7000 feet 

 in the Himalayas ; from the south of England through central Europe, 

 the Mediterranean region — exclusive of Egypt — and the Himalayas to 

 south China and Japan. Its habitat includes at least the islands 

 Cyprus, Sicily, and Minorca. It is, with P. pipistrellus, the commonest 

 bat of Normandy (de Kerville, Naturaliste, 15th October 1891, 239); 

 and in the west, south-west, and centre of France it is also abundant, 

 but less so in the east (RoUinat and Trouessart, Mhn. Soc. Zool. de 

 France, x., 1897, 114). It is common in Guernsey (Bunting). 



In Britain it is confined to the south, mainly the south-west of 

 England and the south and west of Wales, and is not known from 

 Scotland or Ireland (see below). It was discovered by Latham, who 

 found it in the powder mills of Dartford,^ Kent (Pennant, British 

 Zoology, ed. iv., 129, pi. xiv., 1776), and later was encountered by Mon- 

 tagu in considerable numbers in company with R. hipposideros, in Kent's 

 Hole, the well-known cavern near Torquay, Devon. More recent records 

 have connected it with Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Gloucester, 

 Somerset, and Cornwall, in some parts of which counties it occurs 

 abundantly. So far as is known, it has never been reported from 

 Sussex (neglecting the indefinite record of one discovered on the sail 

 of a fishing-boat on Brighton beach, see Ruskin Butteriield) ; and it is 

 quite unknown to Laver in Essex (Bell's statement, repeated in Cassell's 

 Natural History, i., 283, and by Millais, that it occurs at Colchester, 

 being evidently an error, based, as Laver informs me, on a statement 

 made by the botanist Curtis to Yarrell). Kelsall {Zoologist, 1884, 483) 

 states that one was shot on the Berkshire side of the river at Oxford 

 (lat. 51°, 46') about 1875 ; 15 miles further south Noble took two in 

 his cavern in the same county, near Henley-on-Thames, on 14th 

 March 1909 (see Cocks, Journ. cit., 1909, 154); the first-mentioned 



1 Not, as stated erroneously, at Dartmouth, Devon (see Rowe). 



U 2 



